Healthcare leadership, really good leadership, is more than achieving objectives, hitting the numbers, making the bottom line.

During periods of transformational change, leaders have to offer more – exceptional dedication, and, most of all, inspiration.

It is always surprising to me how many people in healthcare dislike, intensely dislike, change even though our industry has experienced 20+ years of fairly dynamic change, primarily in technology.  This alone, this glaring fact of human nature, requires leaders who understand this and who will work diligently to bring along their conflicted colleagues with their vision.

In Wednesday’s post, I borrowed the Rev. Barbara Brown’s light bulb metaphor from Matthew’s version of Jesus of Nazareth’s Sermon on the Mount.  We all have a light bulb. It is a gift from the Creator. What we do with this gift, the Rev. Ms. Brown said, is the real issue in life.  Leaders have a special duty when it comes to their light bulb.  The difference between great leaders, the decided minority, and the so-so crowd is the wattage we pump into the bulb.  How brightly do we illuminate the room – our organization – for the people who follow us?

So we return to the wattage issue – what we do with the gifts and talents we have.  I believe the wattage is comprised of dedication, passion and the desire to inspire.  In earlier posts, I have used the example of the traveling evangelist leadership model, the CEO who proudly and frequently – with every interaction, in every meeting – talks about his or her vision for excellence in quality of care and the safe treatment of  patients.  This type of leader energizes the workforce – from physicians to the hourly workers who clean the rooms – to singularly focus on making what we do a very personal mission as if we were treating those we love the most.

Happy are those who benefit from this leadership light, this moral imperative.